Sir - Nathan Sharansky, in his article "Aiding tyranny instead of confronting truth" (The Irish Times, October 14th) is right in his assertion that "the nations of the free world" prefer to close their eyes to the truth. The simple truth is that Israel is the biggest tyranny in that beautiful part of the world.
A few facts: (1) Israel has occupied Palestinian lands since 1967 in violation of international law and UN resolution 242.
(2) It controls 4.5 million people with no human and civil rights (when they held elections in 1976 the Israelis promptly cancelled the results).
(3) Israeli laws, supported by their supreme court, legalise torture of detainees, allow confiscation of land for the benefit of the occupiers, permit destruction of the homes of suspects and their families, and prevent people from the right to worship in their holy shrines.
In Israel itself there is apartheid: the laws discriminate between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs on a range of issues ranging from funding local authorities to personal rights such as housing, employment and social entitlements. The Jewish National Fund owns approximately 93 per cent of land and Israeli Arabs are not legally permitted even to buy an allotment to build a house.
Mr Sharansky, since his release from the Former Soviet Union (and I personally take some credit for that because I wrote numerous letters for his release), never campaigned to stop the occupation, the torture of prisoners or the killing of demonstrators. Instead he joined the most extreme right-wing government in the history of Israel (headed by Netanyahu) and he personally helped Jewish settlers to flourish and expand on Palestinian land.
He also failed to mention another truth: President Arafat and the Palestinian Parliament were elected in free and democratic elections, which were observed by the UN and the EU. If there is, as yet, an imperfect Western-style democracy in Palestine, the tutelage of an external oppressive, non-democratic regime since 1967 is hardly conducive to internal democracy. The reality is, for every living person and every day (despite Oslo and president Arafat's declaration of peace), Israel still exercises a stranglehold on Palestine, feels free to enter Palestinian territory at will with tanks, prevents free movement of Palestinians, imprisons people without trial and still imposes the 1,000 principles of humiliation on the people.
No sir, Israeli and Palestinian Arabs will not take lessons from a fascist and ungrateful Mr Sharansky. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Nazih Eldin, Beechmount, Navan, Co Meath.